“Fooling around in the papers my grandparents, especially my grandmother, left behind, I get glimpses of lives close to mine, related to mine in ways I recognize but don’t completely comprehend. I’d like to live in their clothes a while, if only so I don’t have to live in my own.”
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
Hello from 1913! In real time we must force ourselves through the long slog of pandemic life. We don masks and gloves. Follow graphs and charts. Pace the house with ever-increasing desperation. On this site, though, we can escape to a happier time. For the past two posts, I’ve written about the Ohio cousins who – in the summer of 1913 – came to visit my grandmother’s family.
Smith Gardner Dunning (“Uncle Smith”) was the son of Horace, younger brother of Louise and Horace Henry (“Uncle H”) and older brother to Kate and Merritt (my grandmother’s father, who was the baby of the family). He was the only sibling of the farming family to leave the town of Wallkill, for Princeton University, no less.
Uncle Smith entered Princeton together with his cousin Harry Slawson Dunning and graduated with the class of 1892. Woodrow Wilson became a professor there in 1890 so it’s possible that the two crossed paths. At the time of these pictures, Wilson had just become the 28th president of the United States.
From 1892-1895, Uncle Smith attended the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. Newspaper snippets like the following show that he spent summers preparing for a life in the ministry.
Smith Gardner Dunning, son of Mr. Horace Dunning, of near this city, who the past year has been studying for the ministry in McCormick Seminary, Chicago, is spending the summer months in Nebraska, engaged in Sunday School mission work and preaching. He is present at Table Rock, Pawnee County.
Middletown NY Daily News 1892 Dec. – Aug. 1893
His time there coincided with one of the worst economic depressions that the U.S. has ever faced – the “Panic of 1983”. In Chicago, where Uncle Smith was studying, June 1893 saw a run on banks. The gold reserves managed by the treasury had fallen so much (from $190 million to $100 million) that people were worried that the U.S. would stop the convertibility with their ‘paper’ money.
With tens of thousands of farms going under, Uncle Smith must have felt that he had chosen the right profession. He would have been a uniquely qualified minister to tend to a flock of broken farmers. And did I mention the weather hazards?
Plenty Near for Comfort
Rev. Smith G. Dunning, of the town of Wallkill, who is preaching in Minnesota this summer, finds cyclones to be quite numerous in that county.
Last summer while organizing Sabbath schools in Nebraska, one passed within 6 miles of where he was, and now a few days ago, one passed within a mile of him, doing great damage and destroying a number of lives.
Middletown NY Daily News 1894 Apr. – Nov. 1894
After Seminary, Uncle Smith spent two years under the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in Western Africa. It seems like there was a Scottish woman, Margaret MacClean, who funded Presbyterians to do missionary work in Africa. The following newspaper article about his appointment shows how far the mindset of the Presbyterian Church USA has come since 100 years ago.
The “dwarfs”, according to what I researched, seem to refer to the Baka People (formerly called “pygmies”) in Cameroon and Gabon.
Will Work in Foreign Lands
In connection with the latest direct information about the Dwarfs in Africa, it is with thankfulness that we announce an effort, the first of the kind, to send them the Gospel. Solely through the benevolence of a lady in Scotland, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions is enabled to inaugurate the attempt.
Rev. Smith Gardner Dunning, a Princeton and McCormick graduate, is under appointment for this service, and the Board is seeking another man to accompany him.
Our societies do not need urging to pray that a self-denying man may be found, the attempt may succeed and that, before the century closes, many poor Dwarfs may learn what their riches are in Christ Jesus.
Middletown NY Daily Press 1896 Oct – June 1897: Women’s Work for Women
After two years, Uncle Smith returned from Gabon. As per the newspaper article announcing his return, the journey was not a short one. “He left the American Mission at Libreville, Gaboon[sic], West Africa, Sept. 8th, and was two months on the way”. (Two months!)
Once home, he married Agnes Rose Powers and proceeded to have Norma (1901), Ranald (1902) and Ruth (1905). I’ve written about Norma and Ruth in previous posts and promise to get to Ranald…he has his own picture later in the album.
In the meantime, I want to introduce you to Aunt Louise, a Civil War baby, born in 1863. My grandmother had titled this one “Weesie eyeing potatoes”.
Unlike Uncle Smith, there was precious little to find about her in the newspapers. I found this sad notice, where she was listed as an entrant to a baking competition that she didn’t win:
There were fifteen competitors for the three prizes offered by McMonagie & Rogers for the best angel cake displayed at the fair flavored with their premium extract vanilla
(M. Louise Dunning, of Mechanicstown)
1898 Jan – Sept. 1898
She didn’t give up though, because I found a later article in 1898 where she won first place for Fig Cake and Breakfast Rolls, and then got the “Bread and Cake” amateur award. Two years later, in 1900, she switched gears and won first prize on her “13-year-old palm” in the Flowers – Amateur category.
Does anyone care that great Aunt Louise knew how to make a great fig cake? It’s funny, but that’s just the kind of detail that makes all this ancestor research worth it. In fact, now that I’m stuck at home, perhaps baking a fig cake would be just the thing.